Waiting is always the hardest part, as Joie Gatlin well knows. She held her breath through most of the jump-off in the $75,000 Ultimate Equine Grand Prix, held Feb. 27 as part of HITS Desert Circuit IV in Indio, Calif.

As the first pair in the second round, Gatlin and Canyon Capital’s Suncal’s King jumped clear, but not very fast. “My goal was to be double clean and set a nice pace, make everybody have to chase me,” Gatlin said. “They’re all seasoned, fast jump-off horses. It was very nerve-wracking to have to watch them all go.”

The six horses who followed Suncal’s King included some very heavy hitters. But while three horses managed to beat his time, none left the jumps up. Gatlin’s double clear over Olaf Petersen’s course held up to earn her the win.

Gatlin, a trainer in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., is still getting accustomed to the ride on Suncal’s King. The Holsteiner gelding, previously campaigned as El Campeon’s Petri, came to Gatlin last summer just before the Olympic selection trials.

“We haven’t even been a team for a year,” she said. Suncal’s King has a huge stride, but Gatlin has not tried to develop his speed yet. “I still need to work on making him learn to go fast, things like that,” she said.

That’s not to say she’s dissatisfied with how the Holsteiner gelding (Lavall I–Zestermuende) is doing. “Double clear, double clear, double clear, I’ll be really happy with that,” she said.

Rich Fellers’ time with Harry and Mollie Chapman’s McGuinness was 31³2 seconds faster than Gatlin’s, but a rail down relegated him to second. Fellers, a professional from Wilsonville, Ore., was fully aware of the tough competition behind him. Gabby Salick, Richard Spooner, Duncan McFarlane and Nicole Shahinian Simpson were all a threat to win.

“I thought, ‘I’ve got to put a little speed on here,’ ” Fellers said. McGuinness, second in the nation last year in money won, has plenty of that. “I’ve galloped and left out a lot of strides in a lot of lines with McGuinness, and he’s very good at it,” he said.

The first two fences in the jump-off were numbers 9 and 4 from the first round. The distance between them was not related, and Fellers had not even bothered to walk that line. He watched from the gate as Gatlin made her way across the ring. “She did nine strides, and I thought fairly easily,” he said. “I thought I could go down there in eight.”

The Irish-bred McGuinness (Cavalier–Farnagh Goldie) had no problem making the distance. He was carrying just a little too much speed, however, and had the tall vertical down behind. “He set fine; he felt great off the ground,” Fellers said, “but with the speed, he didn’t adjust and tuck his hind end quick enough with the amount of momentum he had. I think I could have set him up a little earlier.”

Fellers wasn’t the only rider who had problems with the fence. The third- and fourth-placed horses both had it down as well. “The hard thing about that jump was that just three strides afterward you were out the out-gate,” Fellers said. “With horses headed toward the out-gate, and a tall, airy vertical like that with not a lot of filler to help back them up, that’s a hard jump to jump clean.”

As Good As It Gets

Gatlin, meanwhile, was ecstatic. “Win the class, win the World Cup points, have the only double clear–it’s been an exciting day,” she said.

The Ultimate Equine class was the eighth of nine World Cup qualifiers for the West Coast league. Gatlin’s husband, Morley Abey, was doing a lot of arithmetic. “He’s been pushing the pencil around figuring out where it’s all going to end up,” Gatlin said, laughing.

Abey’s sums look good. With only one qualifier left, Gatlin was in second place in the standings, in a very strong position. Her total after Indio IV was 75 points, with Spooner and Salick tied for third at 65. Mandy Porter is also in the race with 63 points. Only three riders are guaranteed an invitation to the FEI/Budweiser World Cup Finals in Las Vegas in April.

Secure At The Top

With an unofficial total of 87 points, Simpson, who finished third in the Ultimate Equine class, is in the best position of all. She cannot be caught; she’ll be the top qualifier. Simpson would have gone to the finals no matter where they were held. Having them in Las Vegas is just icing on the cake. She and her husband will simply load the horses into the trailer and hit the freeway for the easy, five-hour haul to the Thomas & Mack arena.

“It’s nice that I don’t have to get on a plane,” Simpson said.

Simpson will take El Campeon’s So Long to the finals, and in the meantime, the black Holsteiner gelding by Sandro will get only as much rest as he needs to stay at his peak. “The nice thing about him is that he loves to show,” said Simpson. “It’s not like you have to save him. The more he goes, the better he goes. I’ll definitely show him in a class or two just to get his mind back in the ring.”

Gatlin said it might be best for Suncal’s King to maintain a regular competition schedule too. It’s not as though he is shown too often, after all. “He only does one class a week,” she said. “He only does Sunday. We might go with him just to keep him in routine and just to keep him jumping fit.”

Gatlin was very pleased with Petersen’s course. The German designer used only a small part of the huge Indio grand prix field. “The way he made the ring small for us to simulate an indoor situation was fantastic,” Gatlin said. “That’s what we need to do before we go to the World Cup.”

Of the nine qualifiers in the west, all but two are held outdoors. This places the horses and riders at a disadvantage when they step into tiny indoor arenas. “All the Europeans are doing indoors, and we’re here on the big field,” Gatlin said. “Olaf making the ring small was great practice for us.”

Spooner is enthusiastic about the way U.S. riders have been performing recently and hopes the same holds true in Las Vegas. “It’s been about time for one of us to win for about 10 years now,” he said. “It would be nice, certainly, if we got into the top three. The U.S. team has a right to be proud of all its accomplishments in 2004. Let’s hope that we can keep it rolling in 2005.”